Storm
by Lone Gunwoman of the Week
Summary: SLASH. Sequel to Cold. Vyvyan loves storms. And Rick.


Title: Storm  
Author: rebecca thecountergoddess  
Fandom: The Young Ones  
Pairing: Rick/Vyvyan  
Rating: R-ish  
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these guys.. so how come they're packing my dorm room?  
Summary: Smut in the rain, basically...kind of.

When Vyvyan was thirteen, he'd watched from his classroom window as a storm knocked down a power cable into the school's car park, setting fire to the headmaster's Bentley.

The second the first few bursts of flame were in sight, he'd bolted downstairs and out the side door to watch the carnage up close, several prefects and at least one professor attempting to stronghold him the whole way. The string of reprimands, warnings and threats had stopped the second he made it outside. He'd taken off running, past the car park and out to the football field where the lightning splintered in three different directions five seconds before the crash of thunder that blew his soaked hair back, before he realized it was just him out there. 

He'd outrun everyone there was to run from.

He later witnessed a similar phenomenon in his last few foster homes. A lot of the mothers had screamed after young Vyvyan from their porch fronts as he chased the brilliant sparks that split the skyline, but none of them had risked their necks to physically go and collect him. One had even clothes-lined her own four-year-old daughter as she tried to follow Vyvyan outside. He'd torn past all of them, water splashing and soaking through his worn trainers and denim trousers, the world blurring behind him with a sense of freedom that defied explanation or any girlie pondering.

He'd been as fascinated to see who would follow him as much as he'd been to follow the lightning in search of fiery devastation at the end of the rainbow, but after a while the former dissolved in favor of the latter. Apart from little Deidre, no one else could ever be bothered, but the crispy edges electrical storms left on trees, houses and the odd jersey cow never failed to turn up.

Ten years after that first time, another storm moves in over London and Vyvyan can keenly hear the rumble of thunder several miles away, can smell the salt and sediment already being pulled up from the pavement. It's a little after midnight when he leaves the sofa and the warm body next to him in the living room and follows the sound outside.

Instead of breaking into a run, he stands in the middle of the front yard waiting, palms and fingers open and out as the wind begins to pick up speed and circle around him. He watches the lightning flash in the distance, illuminating the overcast clouds in stuttered pulses slow at first then right on top of each other. The first few drops land on his arm, then his neck, then all over, soaking through to his skin even as the kinetic energy from the electricity begins to lick up his body.

Rick hovers at the top of the front steps, just inside the door watching his house mate first from behind the glass, then from a tight space between the frame and open door. From where he stands in the yard, Vyvyan can see the impossibly wide blue eyes, the slim shoulders jumping spasmodically from short, panicked breaths.

Just as Vyvyan is invigorated by the thunder and the lightning and the wind snatching things up from the ground and bringing them crashing down into the street, Rick is clearly terrified of it and was probably taught to be just as others had tried to teach Vyvyan. Storms bring out the ten-year-old in them both: the filthy street brat darting across people's yards and the scared nancy boy grasping for his mum's apron strings.

_'Haven't got a mum now. Just me.'_ Vyvyan's never had anything that belonged just to him. Rick – with no parents or other family to speak of – is the first. If he wants to cling to Vyvyan, that's okay with him.

Still, the anarchist remains glued to the door frame while Vyvyan throws his head back and laughs at the sky. He follows one jagged streak of lightning out into the street, almost getting clipped by a passing taxi. Vyvyan laughs with his whole body, flipping the driver the V's before something grabs his arm and pulls him round.

"Have you lost your mind?!" Rick screams then yelps and jumps into Vyvyan's arms as a clap of thunder sounds, perilously close and setting off car alarms in the distant. Vyvyan ducks his head to get a closer look at his house mate.

Rick's eyes are still wide and sparkling through the rain that pounds down around them. The fearful trembling's subsided replaced by an almost desperate tension. His grip is uncharacteristically fierce, fingers leaving marks on the inside of the medical student's biceps. Vyvyan smiles, pulling the anarchist closer and pushing him back inside the gate to the front yard. 

Someone finally followed him.

Rick moans into the kiss, hands pushing against Vyvyan's shoulders then sliding down when the punk pushes his blazer off and lets it fall to the wet ground beneath them, followed by the gray shirt, then his own vest and t-shirt. Like storms, Vyvyan is psychic when it comes to his boyfriend. He can hear the impending whingings about pneumonia, fever, tetanus from his exposed piercings, terminal snot. He sucks on Rick's bottom lip and stuffs his own rebuttal about almost being a doctor and well bloody aware of all those things.

Another round of thunder pounds overhead and Rick's fingers claw at his back, pulling him closer just before he pushes the sociology student to the ground and jumps on top of him.

So sod it. If he gets sick, he'll pick up a fifth of something from the off-license. If Rick gets sick, he'll look after him. He'll make Neil fix him some soup, nick the penicillin from the medical college, put him to bed and fuck the fever out of him. In fact, forget the fever..he thinks and starts divesting both him and the suddenly willing anarchist of the rest of their clothes.

Under the cover of darkness and the pissing rain, Vyvyan fucks Rick across the front steps of the share house and again down in the mud that's gathered in front of the bushes as the rain pours down on both of them, sliding across bare flesh and textured concrete. Flattening grass to the ground and collapsing elaborate hair styles. Years later as the thunder moves on and the rain pisses away to a light drizzle, they drag each other inside to dry off.

The mud and grit they're both covered in comes off on the towels they scrub over each other's arms and legs, chests and backs. Not everything is so easily washed away.

Rick's fingers are orange from a mix of cheap powder color and melted hair gel. Vyvyan briefly tries to straighten the points on his fallen and mussed tri-hawk before giving up and just rubbing it dry with his wrung out t-shirt. There are orange streaks all over his chest and torso, criss-crossing scratches that match marks on Rick's own chest and stomach, from fingernails and teeth, the paved sidewalk in front of the house and the front steps. Rick has a dark stripe across his back from the top step and a knot on the back of his head from the front door. Vyvyan's knees are green and rubbed raw from bearing his weight down in the grass. He laughs when Rick grimaces and reaches down and behind his undercarriage, coming up with a handful of green stems. You lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.. Lay down with a medical student in the rain, wake up with grass in your bum. When he realizes he's said the last part out loud, he laughs even harder.

Rick is not amused and moves to pull away but a few well placed bites on his neck and shoulder melts the poet's resolve easily. His arms slip around Vyvyan's neck as the punk leads him out of the toilet and next door to his bedroom.

Vyv pours Rick onto the narrow mattress before crawling in behind him and drawing the covers up and over them. Rick, whose teeth have been chattering non-stop for the past half hour, shivers even as the punk's arms close around his shoulders.

"Vyvyan.." he starts to say before jerking back to sneeze, butting Vyv's chin with his head and blowing a trail of snot across the pillow case.

Vyvyan smirks against his boyfriend's neck, releasing one of his arms so he can wipe his nose and lifting them both up so he can turn the pillow over. Still psychic, he's already heard the question in the lisping, slightly stuffed up voice: _'Are you going to tell me what the ruddy heck that was all about?'_

The medical student thinks about that for a moment, rubbing his bruised chin against Rick's damp hair and marveling at the faint electricity that still hangs in the air. He really shouldn't spoil him with an easy reply even if he had one readily to give. Best to keep the boy on a short leash, he decides just before sinking his teeth into the back of his neck.

"Scoot back a bit, puff. I'm freezing." 


End file.
